


Elemental

by poetroe



Series: Star-Crossed [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Nature, Post-Canon, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:00:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28539972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetroe/pseuds/poetroe
Summary: Ty Lee and Azula travel accross the Earth Kingdom after the war, after reconciling, and sleep underneath the stars every night.
Relationships: Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar)
Series: Star-Crossed [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090850
Comments: 3
Kudos: 61





	Elemental

**Author's Note:**

> someone commented they'd like to see a part 2 to the first tyzula fic I wrote nearly three years ago. I'd started this fic last year and today the writing bug got me so I decided to finish and post it !! if you haven't read the fic that precedes this one please do. I hope yall enjoy this story as well !!

In many ways, they have become like leaves in the wind, Azula and herself. Unbound to the places and the people they encounter, traveling across the Earth Kingdom with no real final destination in mind. Their destination changes daily. Ty Lee sometimes wonders if this is what made the airbenders become a nomadic people: the freedom of it, as well as becoming wise in all the little ways of the world.

Before this trip, that ultimately started with their departure from Kyoshi Island, Ty Lee might have felt like she had traveled enough to last her a lifetime. But that was during the war, in a different age when everything was rushed and tense, the next battle already looming while they were still in the heat of the last one. Her eye falls on her sole travel companion, aside from their ostrich horse. So much is different now, though it is still just the two of them.

After spending a significant amount of time at the Western Air Temple, which might feel like a second home to Azula now, they travel onwards: descending further into Earth Kingdom territory until they encounter an abandoned village, carved out in sandstone. The small, white colored stone houses amalgamate into a mountainous ghost town with buildings that get taller the further they enter into the heart of the it, towering over streets that continuously get more narrow. The sign post at the entrance of the village, next to the faded and crumbling badgermole statues, says its name is Taku.

The once smooth sandstone has grown rugged in conflict, marred by ugly bumps suggesting these walls were used for earthbending, with both scorch marks and overgrowing weeds offsetting the pristine white with black and green. Ty Lee lets her hand caress over the cool petals and the coarse rock, until her fingers come away black with soot. It’s a nice reminder of the coexistence of the elements, she thinks, these traces of earth and fire, even though they’re steeped in conflict. When she tells Azula, the firebender only murmurs that she must have been an Air Nomad in a past life.

They build a fire outside one of the countless empty houses. It’s warm enough to sit outside, huddled together under a blanket not to keep out the cold, but to keep in warmth. Ty Lee sighs contently as she leans against Azula and looks up. It’s not a clear night, but through the thin sheet of clouds the brightest stars still appear. She recognizes a few constellations, ones that they had learned about in school, in another lifetime. Ty Lee wonders if Azula still knows them all, and quickly gets her answer when she feels the former princess trace their invisible connections and shapes on the skin of her arm, beneath the blanket.

They fall asleep against a sandstone wall, clustered together like the stars over their heads. Then, when the sun rises again over the mountainous city, with shards of mist still drifting over the country, they pack up their little belongings on their ostrich horse and continue on their journey.

The next night sees them camping on the very edge of the Great Divide, the canyon that lies at the heart of the Earth Kingdom. It’s dusty, but it’s vast, deep and so, so silent. It’s the most beautiful thing Ty Lee has ever seen. She sits on the edge of the canyon, feet dangling in the air, trying to hear the canyon crawlers down below as Azula starts their fire.

“I think I heard one,” Ty Lee says, without turning back. “This place is supposed to be crawling with them.” She grins at her own joke, and even more so at Azula’s snort.

“Maybe we should throw down some food,” she drawls, as she lights a handful of dry twigs and grass with a firestone. “Who knows. They might try to climb out of the canyon and join us for dinner.” Ty Lee shudders at the thought.

“I heard that they are as big as a house,” she says, with a hint of awe, as she gets up and joins Azula. She looks on as the girl hangs a kettle over the fire.

“Don’t worry, Ty Lee,” Azula says, her shimmering golden eyes on the kettle and the dark green, rolled up leaves of oolong tea that drift in the water. “I’ll protect you.” That molten gold flits up and meets Ty Lee’s gaze with a challenging smile. “If you need it, that is.” Ty Lee grins back. Azula isn’t kidding; Ty Lee knows that even without her bending, the former firebending prodigy is a warrior to be reckoned with. She leans over and presses a kiss to Azula’s cheek.

“I’ll protect you, too, a token of my utmost gratitude,” she murmurs against smooth skin. Azula snorts again, as she brings up a hand to Ty Lee’s cheek and angles her face just so, so she can kiss her properly.

The stars come out again that night, as well as a strong, cold wind that sweeps over the open space of the canyon. Ty Lee shivers briefly as it goes right through their blanket and crawls a little closer to Azula, a moth to a flame. She doesn’t know if this is something all firebenders share, but Azula is always warm, even in her sleep. The rays of heat that she emits are the only traces of her past as a bender and Ty Lee thinks about them as she folds an arm around Azula’s middle and pulls her closer. She’s been thinking for a while now that Azula’s inner fire isn’t lost, just locked. It probably won’t do to tell her about it, though, she thinks before closing her eyes and burrowing her face in Azula’s back. Too much has changed.

They don’t dwell on the Great Divide. They could’ve crossed it, maybe, but neither of them has the urge to find out what lies below when the option to go around is there, following the coastlines of the Western and the Eastern Lakes south of Ba Sing Se. The weather gets warmer as they descend to the water and they spend several days there, content to relax at the lakeside where it’s just them, the trees and the fish that swim near the stony beach.

Ty Lee is currently sitting on a wooden pier, with her legs wading in the rippling navy depths of the lake, that the people in the villages that line the coast say contains a monster. Or a spirit. Or a monstrous spirit. Ty Lee has seen enough to believe it could all be true. Azula pays the rumors no mind and swims to the middle of the lake and back, with a perfect form Ty Lee doubts most waterbenders could match. She likes swimming, but is content to watch her girlfriend for now. There’s something riveting about seeing Azula so in her element in the water, something which is decidedly not her element at all. It’s like Taku, Ty Lee wonders. A nice contradiction in the elements, and their shared existence with one another.

They move on before they get too lazy in the sun and the breeze that make the lakeside such an attractive place to stay, continuing along the coastline until they reach the mountain range that follows through into the Serpents Pass like a scar; a deathblow reaching the heart of the Earth Kingdom, the likes of which Azula could have delivered to a man standing fifty steps away from her with nothing but her lightning. Ty Lee doesn’t know how often, but she’s pretty certain Azula has tried.

The mountains are rugged, but there’s a reliable path that meanders through it like a river, carved out by ages of use. The higher they climb, the colder it gets; when they make camp for the night, Ty Lee starts pitching their tent. They hadn’t needed it until now, their shared warmth being enough to keep them warm throughout the night, but with the threat of nightly snowfall looming it’s best to sleep prepared.

“Do you think it’ll snow at all?” Ty Lee wonders when she finishes securing the last line to the ground. The tent sits on a level bit of ground, which is feels soft underneath her feet thanks to the blanket of needles from the surrounding pines. “Maybe we should set up the tarp, as well.”

Azula considers it as she stirs a pot, a noodle soup with fresh vegetables and some leftover meats. “We’ve already crossed most of the pass today,” she says, “meaning we’re already on the leeward side of these mountains. Beyond lies the desert.” Practiced hands lift the wooden spoon, stealing a bite of duck from the pot. Ty Lee gives her a look, signifying that she’d spotted it—the other girl simply grins. “There won’t be any clouds coming from there,” Azula continues, “and we have cover from these trees. We should be good.”

“Good,” Ty Lee echoes with a smile.

When she lies awake that night, content to listen to Azula’s soft snores, Ty Lee laments her inability to see the stars through the fabric of the tent. Then again, having nothing but the cloth between them and the world feels kind of nice. A former princess and a former Kyoshi warrior, the little secret between her lips and Azula’s dark hair where it rests against her arm, kept in the little space created by faded brown tent walls. If the temperature drops, Ty Lee doesn’t feel it, pressed against Azula’s warm side.

As usual, Azula is right. The elemental spirits are favorable towards them at night and then again in the morning, with the sun melting away any lingering cold as they follow the path down, out of the tree dotted mountains and onto the plains.

A dusty town by the name of Hiru is the last thing on the path that has been leading them towards the Si Wong Desert, which spreads over the Earth Kingdom like the stain from a toppled ink bottle.

It’s noon when they walk through the city gate, a simple wooden structure bearing the town’s name above it proudly. The well that sits in a central position in the middle of the town square is guarded by the man sitting against its stone foundation, lazily leaning on a war hammer. Sweet water like that of Western and Eastern lakes, which they’d swam so freely in, is a commodity in these parts of the Earth Kingdom.

Besides him and the Si Wong tribesmen that are working on their sand-sailers, the town is deserted. Everyone must be hiding from the sweltering midday sun, Ty Lee thinks. Her eyes linger on the tribesmen, swathed in layers of clothing, likely to protect themselves from the sun’s burning rays. Their wooden ships with the rolled up sails look perfect for utilizing the hot, wild desert winds. A stiff breeze rolls over the square and leaves a thin layer of dust and earth on her sweaty skin. Sandbending is a subskill of earthbending, but the Si Wong tribes’ usage of these winds make them not all that unlike airbenders in Ty Lee’s eyes.

Still, only born firebenders could enjoy this type of heat, she realizes when she looks at Azula, whose face is angled towards the sun with a satisfied smile. She wipes the sweat from her brow, and the thin specks of sand with it, wiping it off on her clothes before grabbing Azula’s hand, pulling her along to a spot in the shade.

“This is exactly how I like it,” Azula says as they make their way to a merchant across the square, keeping to the shade of the houses surrounding it. Her golden eyes fall on the well in the center of it. “Nice and hot. Scarcely anybody around.”

“A little bit like the palace gardens,” Ty Lee reminisces. “Although it would never quite get _this_ hot.” In their early days on Kyoshi Island, the throwaway mention of their past life would have startled Azula, create a tension in her shoulders, that now remain comfortably sagged.

“Yes,” she chuckles.

After buying their food and essentials for the next couple of days and securing the bags to their ostrich horse’s back, Azula and Ty Lee leave Hiru behind. Ty Lee thinks they might follow the sands’ edge to the southwest or the northeast, since the Si Wong Desert surely seems to daunting for only the two of them to cross. But Azula surprises her, taking the lead straight into the desert, dutifully stepping through the gritty sand.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Ty Lee mentions when the contours of the desert settlement have completely disappeared against that of the mountains beyond it, and the sun has started its descent behind the mountain range in the west. “We have enough food to last us three days. Not quite enough to cross this place entirely, I think.” The sky has turned to the deep blue of twilight and the brightest stars have already appeared on heavenly stage. Around them is nothing but sand and utter silence. It feels like they’re the only people in the whole wide world.

“Don’t worry,” Azula smirks as she stops walking, deeming this patch of desert perfect to camp until sunrise. “It’s just for the night. I know how much you enjoy looking at the stars.” She steps into Ty Lee’s space, lacing their hands together. “And nothing comes close to the cloudless desert sky.” The last words are murmured, a soft buzz against Ty Lee’s lips before turning to a kiss.

That night they forego the tent, content to stay warm with just the blanket, the crackling fire and each other. Ty Lee’s head rests on the Azula’s shoulder, her arm slung across the other girl’s middle, tucked against the underside of her breast.

They almost never spend more than one night in the same place, yet these little traditions connect them all like pearls on a string: the scratchy blanket, pulled tight around their curled up bodies against the night chill, the heat glowing from Azula’s skin, and all the stars shining down on them from above. They’re surrendered to the elements, out in the open like this.

Even all alone, in the most deserted place on earth, Ty Lee feels bonded to them. The cool sand they’re laying on, the breeze that tickles her cheek, the hot embers of the fire, the waning moon, and them; two threads, endlessly tangled and entwined in the tapestry of this world.


End file.
